Well, fall is upon us again. And I still haven’t gotten around to making those pumpkin muffins. Pumpkins are pretty much dirt cheap this time of year. I bought 3 (about 4 ½ kgs of pumpkin!) for about 4 dollars a couple weeks ago. The first two I turned into puree and stuck in the freezer. The last, and the biggest, sat on my counter and waited. And then waited some more. And some more. Then finally I decided just to turn it into puree too. Then I had a better idea, and this idea was soup.

PS: I had no idea how many varieties of pumpkin there are! I just used what ever Loblaws was selling. Your soup will probably be delicious no matter what pumpkin variety you use.

So good. Also, my best food photo so far! And done without Merissa's fancy camera, too!

Pumpkin soup

1kg pumpkin, roasted

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp. celery seed

2 c. coconut milk

3 c. chicken stock

1 c. water

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. ginger

¼ tsp red pepper

Roasted Pumpkin

I was intending to turn this pumpkin into puree, so I had originally cooked it until tender in my crock pot. To use this method, cut the pumpkin into wedges and fit as many of them as you can into your crock pot. Pour about a cup of water in the bottom of the pot to stop the pumpkin from burning and to get some steam action going. Then stick a lid on it, turn it on high and forget about it for 3-4 hours. Crock pots are super forgiving though, so if you forget for more hours (like I did!) it won’t matter too much. If you want to actually roast your pumpkin in the oven (which will take more attentiveness but also may taste better), there are lots of recipes on the web. Here is one from Kitchen Wench (which is also attached to her own soup recipe)!

Anyway, once you have your pumpkin you can start on the soup.

Soup

Saute onions, garlic and celery seed in a soup pot with the olive oil until onions are tender.

Saute!

Add the peeled, cubed (or at least roughly chopped) pumpkin, which should be tender and easy to cut.

Look how pretty!

Pour in coconut milk, stock, and water. You should have 4 cups total of stock and water, but use them in whatever combination you want… I just happened to have 3 c. stock left from another soup. If I had less I would have used more water instead. 2 c. of coconut milk makes this soup really rich… if you want it to be lighter you could maybe use 1 c. coconut milk and 1 c. milk, or 1 c. of extra water. I used coconut milk because my monkey brain thinks coconut is exotic. If you don’t like it or have allergies, use cream or whole milk instead. The important bit is 6 cups of liquid. That seemed to be the standard for other recipes using a pumpkin of this size, and I like to get at least 3 cups of finished soup out of the deal if I’m going to spend an hour simmering something.

After adding the coconut milk. At this stage it looks gross, but it will be delicious!

Add ginger, cumin, and red pepper flakes. The cumin, ginger and red pepper flake amounts can change. I didn’t want my soup to be too spicy, so I only used a ¼ tsp of red pepper flakes to give it just a little heat. When I make this again I will probably up that amount slightly, but I’m happy with it this way too if you’re not a big spice fan. 1 tsp. of cumin isn’t really enough to contribute heat, just a nice earthiness. Again, depending on your taste you can add more. I really wouldn’t add less though; you won’t taste it at all if you do.

Let the soup simmer on medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about an hour.

Remove from heat, and ladle it into a blender or use a stick blender to bbbssht it (you know, the sound the blender makes!) until it’s smooth.